No identity

By Danilo P. Padua, PhD

Many people have opined that Filipinos, as a whole, do not have their own unique identity.
Maybe they are right.
It is a fact that we were fragmented before the Spaniards came looking for the Spice islands. Seeing that they reached a place even better than what they were searching for, they immediately coveted it.
They were overjoyed when they realized that one group is so different from another, and that these groups did not seem to be much concerned about each other’s welfare. This reality served as a fodder for their avarice.
In short, they became the first bully in our midst, easily vanquishing group after group until they occupied almost the entire archipelago. Then came the Englishmen who briefly lorded over us for about 2 years. Even Belgium, just one-tenth the size of the entire country, but was already a rich country at that time, almost got us under their fold. That country just decided to focus their attention to the black continent.
The Spaniards held us in the dark for so long, they kept us actually divided based on ethno-linguistic considerations. It was a classic case of divide-and-rule scheme.
The Americans came next to rule-but on a better platform of colonization. Their way of subjugating us was so subtle and winsome, we did not feel they had already stolen our hearts and minds. That is to say, we had already absorbed their heretofore strange culture and way of thinking
Then came the harsher realities and brutal ways under the Japanese administrators (although our own parents often talked of a more humane and likeable side of Japanese soldiers during WWII. In fact platoons of Japanese soldiers, according to our parents and our neighbors who were in the know, used to stay in our house whenever they passed by on their patrols or missions in the area. We used to play with a lot of wartime Japanese mickey mouse money stashed in small “bauls”)
We were under tough foreign rules for about 400 years from Middle Ages to the modern era.
So there, what identity can we claim to describe us? We are in effect still searching for our own identity.
This is probably one of the reasons why many of us, including me, are still in a search mode.
Every time I travel to a new place here and abroad, I always exert effort to find a museum and visit it accordingly. Part of search for myself?
There are general museums and there are interest-specific museums. To me however, all museums are exhibits of history. They are there for everyone to enjoy and learn from, whatever is displayed-works of art, material culture, various artifacts, historical and technological materials, or any memorabilia.
Locally, museums are not given much importance by the community. That’s why we are not learning from the past. We seem not to know connections of the past to the present and the future. Unfortunately, we also have very poor appreciations of historical artifacts and natural structures gradually built over thousands of years.
Visiting caves for instance, make one feel forlorn. Why, the tips of stalactites and stalagmites are wantonly torn or besmirched with bare hand touch. They have a story to tell but they can not be expressed because such destruction.
Visiting museums could help generate jobs; the more people who visit, the greater is the possibility of increasing manpower for the museum and related activities. Never mind if people joke that museum personnel are just glorified janitors. I say they give glory and pride to who we are. They help us find our identity.
Although considered as non-profit, museums could induce more income in the locality if they become tourist attractions. More tourists, more trade and commerce where the museums are.

There are many museums all over the country. You can find them in provincial capitols, in bigger colleges and universities, in private properties, in various municipal LGUs.
Go visit museums, they may help you find your own identity; definitely you will help promote your own municipality, city, province or school.
By the way I have my own substantial collections of things: ball pens, stamps, coins and paper bills (local and foreign), greeting cards, postcards, some cultural artifacts, old pictures, and many more. They were supposed to be meant for a small private museum.